Chinese developer expanding to portals and social networks after positive financials

Shanda Games, China's third largest online developer, has revealed that it plans to roll out titles to Chinese content portals and social networks over the next year, expanding its presence in social gaming.

The news came alongside a quarterly financial report which showed a slight dip in profits thanks to increased development spending, but a strong upswing in sales of 9.6 per cent. Net income dropped by 4.9 percent to 312.9 million Yuan, but sales were up to 1.25 billion Yuan, with the company predicting a four to five per cent rise in the next quarter.

Speaking in an interview accompanying the results, reported by Business Week, Shanda CEO Alan Tan said that ten social and mobile titles would be provided to Sina and Tencent over the next year, followed by 18 traditional games in the next 18 months. Roll out plans for Renren will follow.

The move is indicative of the levels of expansion and competitiveness amongst China's social network and microblogging industry, with Tencent still on top with 160 million users, followed by Sina with 140 million. Adding content such as games to the services is a clear attempt to broaden remit, but Shanda has been canny enough to play both sides of the turf war.

Shanda itself has tremendously ambitious plans, with Tan telling press that he wants 20 per cent of the company's income to come from outside China within three years. In that same timeframe, Tan also expects mobile games to be the fastest growing sector of the company business, comprising ten per cent of revenues by 2014.

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